Battlefield

Satellites depend on radio frequency spectrum to communicate with each other and with ground stations on Earth, but spectrum is a finite resource that’s prone to interference — an issue that’s only gotten worse as more satellites are launched into orbit. Satellite operators have become increasingly concerned that growing numbers…

Data loss prevention (DLP) has emerged as a foundational strategy for businesses looking to prevent workers from inadvertently (or advertently) sharing sensitive data outside the confines of the company network. At its core, DLP is about solving the “people problem” — humans are often at the center of security lapses,…

The idea of bringing AI into the classroom doesn’t sit well with everyone, but the team behind Nolej believes that generative AI can supercharge learning — all while keeping teachers front and center. Nolej AI is an AI-powered tool that lets educators quickly generate interactive learning modules like quizzes, flashcards,…

The aviation industry is well aware of its carbon footprint, but it’s not an industry where things change quickly.

Creating crops that’ll endure climate change — think worse droughts, heat waves and pests — is a time-consuming and costly feat. Avalo is betting its machine learning models can speed that process up and make it a whole lot cheaper too.  The Durham, North Carolina–based startup, which pitched onstage at…

Factory downtime is an expensive problem. According to one estimate, it costs enterprise companies 11% of their yearly turnover, amounting to almost $1.5 trillion each year. That works out to about $129 million per facility among Fortune 500 companies, over double what Fortune 500 companies reported paying in downtime in…

Heavy industry relies on fossil fuels not just for power, but heat. Thermal batteries could help make electrification a reality for those companies.

Meet BioticsAI, a startup that has built an AI-based platform that plugs into an ultrasound machine to prevent fetal malformation misdiagnosis. BioticsAI has been quietly working on its solution for the past two years and is now unveiling its product onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt as part of the Startup Battlefield.…

Lithium-ion batteries have become the standard in the electrification revolution. In fact, they’ve become so unquestionably integral to the development of batteries that everyone from government to automakers to big oil is rushing to shore up access to the mineral. The only problem is, lithium is expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive…

Monoclonal antibodies are the building blocks of some of the most important medical treatments in the world. But they have limitations. For example, the large size of the molecules mean monoclonal antibody treatments usually need to be injected — even for eye conditions. Narval CEO Jose Luis Nuno describes the…

If you’re rushed to the hospital and into emergency surgery, it would be helpful if the anesthesiology team could predict whether your body will react in the way they expect. In the majority of cases, things work out just fine, but if a patient has liver failure, things can get…

During the last two days, 20 startups pitched their companies as part of TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2022. These 20 companies were selected as the best of the brand-new Startup Battlefield 200 and competed for a chance to take home the Battlefield Cup and $100,000. TechCrunch editors and expert…

The orbital economy is heating up, but the infrastructure that supports it is starting to creak. Kayhan Space is a startup that makes sure your satellite doesn’t crash into another — or a launch or piece of space trash, for that matter — using modern data crunching techniques and a…

Advanced Ionics, a climate-tech startup that hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is striving to drive down the price of green hydrogen by slashing how much electricity is needed for electrolysis by as much as 50%. That’s an admirable goal, because despite all the talk of hydrogen as a “fuel of the…

For most dairy farmers, milk flowing from their cows is tested by a traveling technician once per month. But in a world where bovine mastitis can appear from one day to the next, it is udderly ridiculous to test milk flowing from cows once per month. Today at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield, Labby…

As the global data privacy regulatory landscape gets more convoluted and constrictive, engineering teams looking to use structured data to improve their products and AI models are being pushed to jump through plenty of hoops to stay compliant. BetterData, which is launching onstage at the TechCrunch Disrupt SF Battlefield startup…

Plastics are great for so many things, but they stay around for an awfully long time. Intropic leaps to the rescue with a set of enzymes that can be added to plastics at the very beginning of their life cycle, before it is even turned into products. The additives the…

The way Incooling co-founder and COO Helena Samodurova sees it, the IT world is experiencing two major crises: an energy crisis and a supply chain crisis. For IT teams, satisfying new climate-friendly energy budgets is presenting a challenge, particularly when dealing with older computer hardware. At the same time, acquiring…

Born inside the Technical University of Munich, the engineers behind Reverion say they’ve had their heads down for seven years developing a way to get more electricity out of biogas and existing fuel-cell technology. Biogas comes from decomposing waste and is mostly made up of methane. It’s a form of…

The electric everything revolution is here, and with it an unprecedented demand for critical battery materials. The most precious of all? Lithium, the crucial ingredient in the lithium-ion batteries that will power everything from your Tesla to your iPhone.  The problem is, extracting lithium is expensive, time-consuming, labor intensive and…